ASSOCIATED PRESS

December 20, 2005

Farm-worker cash advances draw criticism

YUMA - A farm-worker advocacy group plans to lobby state legislators to outlaw daily cash advances used by some area growers and farm-labor contractors to attract laborers.

Janine Duron, chairwoman of the Yuma County Farmworker Service Coalition and a job services supervisor with the Arizona Department of Economic Security, said growers and contractors compete for workers by offering higher cash advances to trump each other.

But she said the pay system attracts undocumented workers, gives workers an opportunity to evade paying taxes and encourages workers to jump from company to company, making it nearly impossible for workers to hold employers accountable and vice versa.

Employers say the system is a necessary evil and the result of companies competing for fewer and fewer workers amid a shortage, which growers say is being exacerbated by enforcement efforts of the U.S. Border Patrol.

The daily advance, called la tira, which is Spanish for "the throw," ranges from $20 to $50 and is taken out of paychecks.

"When labor is tight, you give la tira to anybody who asks for it," said Sonny Rodriguez, president of the Growers Co., an area farm-labor contractor that coordinates and manages work crews for growers. "Everybody is doing it."

Rodriguez said an increasing number of farm-labor contractors, at least a dozen, use the advances to assemble crews in the Yuma area.

"If we took away la tira, we wouldn't have crews tomorrow," Rodriguez said.